Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms
Before independence in India, the farmers did not have any legal rights on the land. At that time, the British government had made a permanent settlement of land, under which in most parts of the country, the entire land of a village was under the control of a zamindar.
The zamindar collected rent from each farmer and deposited a fixed part of it in the government treasury. This practice was called Ryotwari system. In some parts of the country, Mahalwari system was also prevalent, under which it was the common responsibility of the whole village to deposit the rent of the entire village land in the government treasury. As a result, the life of the peasants was not only highly exploited and poor, but the peasants were also very indifferent to their land.
After independence, between 1950 and 1951, different states made their own laws and abolished the zamindari system. At this time it was arranged (especially in Uttar Pradesh) that the farmers who have been cultivating on the same land for many generations, they should pay ten times the rent of one year.
You can get permanent ownership of that land by depositing it with the government. Such farmers were called ‘Bhumidhar’.
If a farmer is cultivating any land for five years before the abolition of zamindari, then by depositing fifteen times the rent of one year, he was also given the facility of becoming a bhumidhar. In addition, it was felt that highly fragmented agricultural holdings hinder the development of scientific methods of farming and substantial capital investment in it. a
Thus, consolidation of holdings was accepted as an important measure to make agriculture economical and increase its efficiency. Through consolidation programmes, the work of giving a combined block of land to the farmers in place of small pieces of land was started.
Under this program, 602 lakh hectares of land has been consolidated till 1992. All these efforts are so important that through them a new enthusiasm was generated among the villagers about their land and its produce. Later, as a result of these land reforms, it was possible to increase the agricultural production very much.
Even after these land reforms it was realized that hundreds of acres of land have been accumulated with some landowners whereas there were lakhs of farmers who either had less than one acre of land or were working as landless farmers. Were . To improve this situation, different states have fixed the maximum limit of holding by making separate laws. Although such laws could not be passed in all the states, but in some states, 30.34 lakh hectares of land was declared as additional till March 1998 under the old and amended limiting laws out of the persons who had land more than the maximum limit. Out of this, 26.64 lakh acres of land was acquired and 21.06 lakh hectares were distributed among 51.47 lakh landless agricultural labourers. Majority of such laborers are members of scheduled castes and tribes. The good reality is that today the big landowners who have a large part of the cultivable land, they themselves get a large part of their produce by giving their land share to the landless laborers. As a result of this, indirectly the practice is still existing today. It is clear from the survey of many areas that even today people belonging to the upper castes like Brahmins, Bhumihars and Rajputs are big land owners but they do not do the work of agriculture themselves.
Daniel Thorner, in his book ‘Agrarian Prospects in India’, has clarified that this situation is a clear manifestation of the caste hierarchy of traditional Indian society and the values associated with it. Even due to administrative efficiency and apathy, the common villagers could not get much benefit from the land reform efforts. This is the reason that the government is now considering such a comprehensive policy for land reform, through which more facilities of cultivable land can be provided to the small farmers and landless laborers who are being exploited by the big land owners.
CO – OPERATION MOVEMENT
The place of co-operation in rural reconstruction is very important. Literally co-operation means ‘working on the basis of cooperation’. The importance of cooperatives first became known when in England, Robert Owen achieved extensive successes in the industrial sector on the basis of cooperatives. On the basis of this experience, the importance of cooperatives was recognized in rural areas as well. Defining cooperatives, Horace Plunket has written, “Co-operation is self-reliance made effectively by the organization.” Try to achieve the goal of self-reliance in various fields. According to Herrick, “Co-operation is that activity of the voluntarily organized poor persons through mutual management for the use of their powers or resources or both and whose object is to achieve common benefit.
In short it can be said that cooperative is an organization in which individuals voluntarily organize themselves to protect their economic interests on the basis of equality. It is clear from the above definitions that a cooperative is an organization of such persons whose members work together under certain rules for the attainment of common objectives. Cooperation is different from other organizations because its inspiration and guidance is given by the government while its implementation and expansion are done by the members. characteristics of this organization